So, is your roof leaking?

Q: Tim, I’m beside myself. My expensive asphalt shingles that have a 30-year warranty are less than 10 years old and starting to curl. I see lots of roofs around me doing the same. I never recall observing this type of defect in all my past houses with asphalt shingles. Did I get a bad batch? What’s going on? –Charlie, Raleigh, N.C. A: Do your curled shingles look like the asphalt potato chips up on Charlie’s roof? Guess what, it happened to me. My own 30-year-warranty asphalt shingles started to fall apart in nine years and suffered a catastrophic failure just a few years later. [...] My research indicated the problem is happening all across the USA. In my opinion, it appears many of the shingle manufacturers are blowing too much air into the liquid asphalt at their factories. You need to blow some air into the asphalt, just enough so the black brew doesn’t drip from your roof on a hot summer day. But blow too much air into the asphalt and you pre-age the shingles. Imagine opening a fresh pack of shingles only to discover they already have twenty, or more, years of wear built into them. It sounds like you got some of these poor-quality products. I discovered something that can save you and millions of other homeowners billions of dollars. While doing research for “Roofing Ripoff,” I discovered that copper ions react with asphalt molecules, slowing down the aging process. It’s been known for centuries that copper prevents algae and moss buildup on roofs and ship hulls, but I was the first to recognize copper can make asphalt shingles last 40, 50 or even more years! How cool is that? You just have to put a 12-inch wide roll of very thin copper on top of the cap shingles that run across the ridge of your roof and any hips. The copper dulls down to an attractive medium nut brown in as little as four months so you don’t even see it. [Full] Resonates here because we had a new 30 year roof installed 4 years ago (and covered with solar panels a year later).  MoSup has been finding  small bits of shingle on the ground of late, so this triggers stuff.